Kristy Ram­nar­ine

kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

The scenic beach­front Mt Plaisir Es­tate Ho­tel has been ranked by Tri­pAd­vi­sor—a glob­al trav­el guid­ance plat­form—in the top ten per cent of ho­tels world­wide.

The rank is based on its con­sis­tent­ly ex­cel­lent guest re­views, earn­ing the prop­er­ty the Trav­ellers’ Choice award.

The prop­er­ty is man­aged by Trinidad and To­ba­go des­ti­na­tion man­age­ment com­pa­ny HAD­CO Ex­pe­ri­ences, which has been fea­tured in pres­ti­gious pub­li­ca­tions across the US, UK, and Eu­rope, bring­ing glob­al at­ten­tion to the vi­brant spir­it and un­matched beau­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“Love­Ex­plor­ing.com named the Leatherback tur­tle hatch­ing ex­pe­ri­ence at Mt Plaisir Es­tate Ho­tel one of 20 of the World’s Most Mag­i­cal Noc­tourism Ex­pe­ri­ences, while Read­er’s Di­gest (On­line) in­clud­ed Mt Plaisir Es­tate Ho­tel in its roundup of Unique­ly Weird Ho­tels: Strangest Ho­tels in the World,” said HAD­CO Group’s co-chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, John Hadad.

“It’s in­cred­i­bly re­ward­ing to see this ex­cit­ing glob­al recog­ni­tion for HAD­CO Ex­pe­ri­ences, but at the end of the day, our true pas­sion is shar­ing the heart and soul of Trinidad and To­ba­go with the world, one un­for­get­table jour­ney at a time.”

Hadad high­light­ed that re­gen­er­a­tive tourism—of­ten de­scribed as a prac­tice that seeks to leave des­ti­na­tions in a bet­ter state than they were found—was the main thrust of HAD­CO Ex­pe­ri­ences.

It’s one of the main rea­sons why in­dige­nous nat­u­ral­ist and ded­i­cat­ed ed­u­ca­tor Giselle Ra­goo­nanan is the bio­di­ver­si­ty of­fi­cer for the Group HAD­CO Ex­pe­ri­ences.

“Giselle brings to bear a lot of the knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence. She is at the front and cen­tre of our re­search,” he added.

Ra­goo­nanan is al­so co-founder of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Bird Ob­ser­va­to­ry and Re­search Cen­tre (TTBO), which works to­wards ad­vanc­ing avian re­search, con­ser­va­tion, and ed­u­ca­tion through bird band­ing, habi­tat man­age­ment and com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment span­ning across both is­lands.

HAD­CO Ex­pe­ri­ences is keen on giv­ing vis­i­tors the au­then­tic lo­cal ex­pe­ri­ence—from the em­ploy­ment of peo­ple with­in the com­mu­ni­ty to the serv­ing of lo­cal dish­es and the use of farm-to-ta­ble veg­eta­bles.

Hadad be­lieves there is ma­jor po­ten­tial for eco­tourism in this coun­try.

“We have a raw prod­uct which has nev­er been pack­aged and sold as re­gen­er­a­tive tourism,” he said.

“Now is the time; peo­ple are al­ways look­ing for some­thing new.

Eco-tourism is not a one-di­men­sion­al way, but there are many lay­ers to it.”

Look­ing to the fu­ture, Hadad said HAD­CO Ex­pe­ri­ences’ in­ten­tion is to con­tin­ue im­prov­ing and ex­pand­ing the eco­tourism of­fer­ings of the com­pa­ny by stay­ing true to its four main pil­lars: Com­mu­ni­ty, Con­ser­va­tion, Com­merce and Cul­ture. On­go­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers to pro­vide goods and ser­vices and con­tin­ued in­vest­ment in con­ser­va­tion ini­tia­tives are crit­i­cal fac­tors con­tribut­ing to the com­pa­ny’s achieve­ment of its ob­jec­tives. As with any good busi­ness mod­el, the com­mer­cial as­pect is key—the com­mu­ni­ty, con­ser­va­tion and cul­tur­al ini­tia­tives re­ly on hav­ing a ro­bust and prof­itable foun­da­tion to sur­vive.

When it comes to cul­ture, HAD­CO is no stranger, with a sol­id in­vest­ment in Mu­si­cal In­stru­ments of T&T Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (MITTCO), which was al­so fea­tured in Wan­der­lust Mag­a­zine’s Green Is­sue (June/Ju­ly 2025) in their ‘Caribbean By Lo­cals’ fea­ture.